Civil Union Question

Subject: Welcoming congregation for civil unions

Trainsmoke DeLeon wrote: Can straight couples have civil unions? I'm engaged and straight and don't want to get married until everyone can get married. I was disgusted by the anti-gay props that were passed last week and have decided to rethink how I approach my own wedding. I am not comfortable enjoying freedoms available to me simply because of the genes I was born with. If we're allowed to get a civil union, then I think that is what we will do until gay marriage is legal. If not, then we'll just have to step up the fight.

EasilyFound wrote: Thanks for explaining the distinction between civil union and domestic partnership, which is what exists in NYC.

My question for gays is this --- would you be satisfied if each state abolished "marriage" and replaced it with "civil union," which would contain the same exact legal rights that had existed for married couples, and which woud apply equally to gays and straights, and that each state would recognize the civil union of every other state.

In other words, let the people who oppose "equal marriage" on moral or religious grounds keep the label of marriage, and require people who get "married" under their religion to also get a civil union for their marriage to be recognized under the law.

Do you just want the same rights that straights have or do you also want to be able to claim the label of marriage the same as straights?

EasilyFound wrote: I understand about your being irked. I guess I'm trying to figure out how much it irks people, enough to say you want to be accepted equally into the system that exists now or if you want full equalilty under an alternate system.

apollonia666 wrote: Well, speaking as someone whose career is working for the LGBT rights movement, I can tell you that there's no such consensus right now. Most of the national groups feel, based on everything we know about the federal and state courts, the state and federal legislatures, and public opinion, that there is no way we're going to get full marriage under the law federally or in most states anytime soon, and that we have to take an incremental approach - getting marriage in the states where we can, civil unions or at least some domestic partner protections in other states, and more basic discrimination protections in the most entrenched anti-gay states - with an eye towards turning public support on the issue over several years until there is enough support that we can win full marriage rights on a federal level.

But there are many people who are tired of waiting, don't understand or want to support an incremental approach, and want nothing less than full marriage now. I get how their frustration, but I don't think they're being realistic at all, and I worry that attempts to force the issue on a federal level will backfire - if a same-sex marriage case made it to the current U.S. Supreme Court and lost, which is what I think would happen given the current makeup of the court.

Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court don't normally make a stand in favor of social change issues until most of the country is already there anyway -- for example, when Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down laws banning interracial marriages, was finally decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, most states had already banned such laws and there were only a handful of states left with them. Same thing with Lawrence v. Texas, the case that struck down anti-gay sodomy laws in 2003. However, the Supreme Court is historically very slow to overturn its previous decisions, and an anti-gay Supreme Court decision now could set us back immensely. In 1986, 13 years before Lawrence, the Supreme Court had upheld anti-gay sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick, and most LGBT legal scholars agree that we might have been able to eliminate sodomy laws sooner than 2003 were it not for that setback.

Anyway, before I blather on more, I just don't think you're going to get a single monolithic answer about whether getting civil unions on a federal level would be enough to make gay people happy, because the gay community is made up of millions of individuals and isn't itself a single monolithic entity. Some would be okay with that, and many wouldn't. Some would be okay with it as an incremental step but not forever. And some don't care about marriage at all.

Dexter wrote: apollonia666:

I have learned a lot from your posts. You provide solid information and a concise way to say things. I am a strong believer in gay marriage and gay rights and find myself in some conversations with folks, from both political parties, where I am pretty much shocked by the arguments I hear from folks who are against gay marriage.

Some fairly conservative people I know use the argument that by allowing gay marriage, it opens the door for marriage between humans and animals. When I hear this argument, my angry response has been, “That is just an easy way out for your basic prejudice” or “Why do you ask other human beings to take a seat at the back of the bus?” And when I am being more thoughtful, I think to mention equal rights, human rights, the constitution and so on. How do you respond to folks (usually conservative, but sometimes to the left) who use this “then people will be marrying goats” argument?

Some liberal, far left people I know have used the arguments that gay marriage should stay illegal because, “By bringing up the issue, we will never get Democrats elected for national office,” “The country isn’t ready yet,” “We will offend religious voters,” and “I am Catholic (or Jewish or Christian or whatever) and believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.” How do you respond to these reasons or excuses?

Dexter wrote: apollonia666:
Some fairly conservative people I know use the argument that by allowing gay marriage, it opens the door for marriage between humans and animals. When I hear this argument, my angry response has been, “That is just an easy way out for your basic prejudice” or “Why do you ask other human beings to take a seat at the back of the bus?” And when I am being more thoughtful, I think to mention equal rights, human rights, the constitution and so on. How do you respond to folks (usually conservative, but sometimes to the left) who use this “then people will be marrying goats” argument?

Dexter wrote: cccc:

What were anti-mesegination laws? I have done some online searches, but can't figure out what they were.

Thanks,

Dex